A question popped up on my e-mail this morning: “On average, why do women tend to live longer than men?”

Well, if we’re looking at the big picture, my first thoughts were that they don’t go to war as much, they don’t drive heavy machinery as much after taking Nyquil and they probably don’t hang out in bars as much. That last thing is purely theoretical on my part, of course.

But none of those contentions are on the list that Toronto-based psychotherapist Dr. Bob Gottfried, author of Shortcut to Spirituality: Mastering the Art of Inner Peace, has put together. He says it’s more about a female’s ability to not suppress her emotions, to talk about her feelings and they are more prone to doing yoga. In a nutshell, they can scream, kick a trash can and get it all out of their systems quicker.

He says men, however, are sort of programmed otherwise because in childhood, boys get the message that expressing feelings equal frailty, that they should avoid any display of vulnerability. Historically, it was once important for men to erect a faade of strength in order to frighten enemies and predators, but that’s not particularly helpful today, he says.

I got to thinking about what all he said, and I don’t recall ever reading about a woman climbing a tower with an automatic weapon. I also don’t remember reading about any women “going postal” and I say that with all due respect to my mail carrier and I use that analogy only because it has become sort of a phrase to illustrate the dangers of a backlog of frustrations. In layman’s terms, women tend to explode in smaller packages with less collateral damage.

I suppose if in ancient times little boys were encouraged to growl back at the wolves then there’s a chance that the tendencies became chromosomal.

And maybe that’s why you’ve never heard of a quarterback named Percy and why they called that guy “Attila The Hun” and not “Attila Hun.”

I recall one night when I was encountered by a bunch of thugs. They were throwing rocks at my car, and before my brain was engaged my body was out of the car confronting them. Suddenly, my brain caught up and as much as I struggled with algebra in college, I had no problem with simple math. I was counting the bad guys and my lordy, I was running out of numbers.

Of course, after you’ve made such a commitment, it’s not easy to do a reverse. A pilot friend of mine told me that once you’ve cut the power on a jet and dropped the landing gear, you’re committed. And so I guess I pulled on that chromosome where the little boy snarls at the grizzly. I think I had those punks believing I was an operative for the CIA and to mess with me would have The Company down on their heads big time. They were not smart enough to know that an operative for the CIA would not have been driving an orange Datsun B-210 hatchback. Nor would he have given away his identity. I guess in retrospect, I should have gone FBI or maybe a lieutenant in Civil Air Patrol.

So Gottfried is suggesting that men embrace melancholy more and talk about their feelings. And I don’t think he means getting hooted and writing country songs. That probably would work, but not every guy can play a guitar.

But by the same token, while men may not have to beat their chests to scare away boogers, there are other factors of infringement that probably still require at times a suppression of anxiety and fear and the ability to induce some levels of strut and flex. In other words, yoga won’t always get the job done. Maybe the good doctor is suggesting that we find a happy medium.

And that reminds me, I dated a happy medium in college, but I won’t go there lest it induces undue stress and pressure in my life. By the way, Gottfried is offering his on-line course for free at www.deeperdimension.com.

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)